


Cheat Days

by chicklette



Series: Popcorn Bucket [10]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, Ficlet, Ghost Bucky Barnes, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mentions of Peggy - Freeform, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, WS Bucky Barnes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-12
Updated: 2018-03-12
Packaged: 2019-03-30 14:12:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13953294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chicklette/pseuds/chicklette
Summary: Steve Rogers spends his days fighting.  He spends his nights feeling lonely, and so out of place.  Then Dr. Strange offers him a glimpse into the past - a respite from his pain.  All it takes is a twist of a golden coin.





	Cheat Days

**Author's Note:**

> Title and inspiration came an episode of The Magicians.

Once upon a time, Steve Rogers liked to think of himself as a decent guy.

Once upon a time, he was one.

But that was before Wanda whispered into his ear, showed him a world without war.  It was before he met Stephen Strange, before he learned about magic and what it could do.

It was before Strange made him an offer, gave him a coin.

All of it was _before._

Strange pressed the coin into Steve’s hand.  “It can cure what ails you,” he said.  “Ease the hurt.”  The coin is heavy, and warm with magic.  “Turn it three times toward you,” Strange said. “And three times toward the setting sun.  On the last turn, say: ‘My dearest love awaits me. My dearest love, please come.’”

Steve thanked Strange and pocketed the coin, careful not to fiddle with it in his pocket, lest he set off some kind of magic he didn’t know how to control.  It sat in his pocket, heavy and warm, reminding him of what he’d lost – a life, his love.  Himself, if he isn’t careful.

He carries it with him always: on missions, while sparring, during the communal events that Stark throws together, riding his bike alone, upstate.

He hasn’t used it.  He won’t use it.  As much as he’d loved her – and he did – Peg isn’t who he wants to see.  Needs to see.

So he carries on.

It’s not until one last spring day, when the Avengers were called in to help with mad scientist who’d taken over a high school that Steve got desperate enough to use it.

When they’d finally gotten past all of the defenses, Steve was dispatched to bring in the bad guy.  When the bad guy turned out to be none other than some seventeen year old kid, Steve lost it.

They got back to the compound and Steve put away his gear, stripped, and showered.  He dressed again and went to his rooms, where he proceeded to pace for the next three hours. The coin in his pocket was heavy.  He couldn’t stop thinking about it.

Even if all it brought him was Peggy, at least it would be something.  Someone who might understand what it was like, abandoned in this Brave New World.  He stands on the patio off his rooms of the tower.  He’s thinking about doing it.  He looked up the moment of sunset on the internet.  He’s got the tables memorized.

He’s a fraud.  None of them know it, but he is. Strange thought he’d want to see Peggy, want to breathe life into a decades-old romance. Steve laughs at the notion. 

She’d been so good to him.  To _them_.  When Steve went into the ice, she let the world think that the two of them were in love.  She played the grieving girlfriend, let the press think what they wanted.  

When he came out of the ice, no one, not one of them, knew about Bucky.

He tries one last time to resist, but he’s always been a lousy liar – especially when lying to himself.

The coin flips, glinting in the last light of the day.  Steve says the words, and he waits.

And he waits.

There’s nothing. Steve looks around the patio, he listens.  He searches the field beyond his patio, but nothing.  He walks back into the apartment (not his, he can’t make himself think of it as his) and is heading to the lobby when –

“Hey, Steve.”

Steve’s breath leaves him all at once.  The voice is coming from the kitchen and Steve, he – oh, _God_.  He’s not ready for this.

Turning, ignoring that his eyes already feel hot and heavy, he looks across the room.

“Bucky?”

The smile on Bucky’s face is bright – it’s beautiful.  He’s tall and gorgeous, just like always, dark hair in a pompadour the way he wore it just before the war.  Steve would come home from doing deliveries for Mr. Oakman at the pharmacy, feet hot and tired, the small of his back aching, and Buck would be in the kitchen, wearing a sleeveless undershirt, trousers sitting low on his hips, suspenders slipped loose and bracing the sides of his thighs.  

He’d come to Steve with a cold beer or a coke, a warm smile and eyes that promised _soon_ – just as soon as the sun goes down, Stevie, just hold on a little for me, wouldya?

“C’mon, punk, take a load off,” Bucky says and Steve can’t help the gasping sob that pushes its way out of him.  “Buck?”

“Hey, come on then,” Bucky says, and he makes his way over to Steve, light steps and lithe movements, like a cat or a dancer.  

Beautiful. Christ, he was always so beautiful.

When he wraps his arms around Steve, Steve’s not sure what to expect.  He didn’t expect this – Bucky solid and sure, smelling like Kirk’s Castile Soap and warm skin and _Bucky._

“I missed you so much,” Steve says, and loses the battle.  He sobs into Bucky’s neck, both arms wrapped tight around his waist, feeling him warm and there and _alive._   Bucky holds him close, hand rubbing a circle on Steve’s back, making that shushing sound that both soothed and infuriated Steve, way back when.

“Missed you too, pal,” Bucky says.  “Been looking for you everywhere. “

Steve lets Bucky hold him through his sobs, hold him through the night, and it’s only when the morning breaks, sky turning from bruised to pink, that Bucky gives him one last squeeze, and then disappears.

They spend two more nights that way, and on the third, Bucky pushes Steve away.  

“Pal,” he says, eyes that bright, mischievous blue that drives Steve crazy.  “Come on,” he says, tugging Steve closer by his belt loops, licking his lips, red and little chapped.  Bucky always had chapped lips.  “I’m dying here,” he says, eyes flicking to Steve’s mouth.

That night they make love, hot and frenzied, then slow and languid, and when Steve wakes in the morning, he’s devastated when he realizes Bucky is gone.  After a few moments and a few heaving breaths, he pushes it aside, and begins his wait for the sunset.

It takes ten days for Stephen Strange to darken his doorway.  

“Captain,” he says, his voice oozing disapproval.

Steve knows why he’s there and he – he can’t.  His fingers fly to his pocket, reflexively rubbing the coin.  The sun sets in 27 minutes.  

“Doctor.”  Steve nods but makes no move to let Strange in.  Strange stares at him for a moment, then waves his hand and the two of them are inside of Steve’s apartment.

“You were meant to use it to let go,” Strange says.  “Not to hold on. This won’t end well.”

Steve forces himself to keep his grip on the coin in his pocket light.

“I won’t take it from you. But I will deactivate it.  If I have to.”

Steve sighs, feeling weak with the relief of knowing he’ll have at least one more night.

“You know that this is nothing more than your memories, yes?  It isn’t really him.  All of this – everything he is – it’s just you, how you remember him.”

Steve keeps himself from visibly startling, but it’s a close thing.  “You knew?” he asks.

“I’m quite amazed the whole world does not.  One look at that old film footage and I knew.”  

Strange doesn’t touch Steve, but it looks like he wants to, like he stays himself.  It unnerves Steve enough to say what’s on his mind.

“If you only knew, you’d understand.  I just – please.”

Closing his eyes, Strange seems to gather himself, before he responds.  “It’s because I understand,” he says, eyes looking so kind, “that I gave you the coin at all.  I won’t take him from you now, but, soon, Captain Rogers.  You –“ He stops himself, peering into nothing, before giving a curt nod. “If you’re the man I think you are, then soon you’ll not have a need.”

“What do you-“

Strange nods at the patio, at the waning sun.  “Go.” He says.  “You’ll miss your window.”

Steve glances at the darkening sky and when he looks back, Strange is gone.

After that night, Steve uses the coin sparingly.  Only on the very worst days – when he is tired and sore and hurts all over, hurts inside and out.  Sometimes it’s the fight that does it, his need to be held, to be loved after throwing himself on the line.  Other times it’s something else  - something more cruel – a joke that he knows Bucky would find hilarious, a movie that Bucky would have loved, a book.  Sometimes Steve is just so goddamned lonely that he feels like he’s going to come out of his skin.  Then he has what he calls a cheat day.  A day when he closes up his apartment and uses the coin, and sighs into Bucky’s embrace. 

They are few and far between, and they are the only thing keeping him sane.

He sees Strange now and again, in fights that are bigger than both of them, at the odd Stark function. 

“It’s not getting better, is it?” Strange says, nodding at Steve over a glass of fuchsia.  When Steve shakes his head, Strange responds, “Don’t worry.  It will.  Tick-tock, Captain.”

.

“Go!” Sam yells.  “I got this!”

The ensuing firefight wreaks havoc on the causeway.  Nat gets shot, Sam…Sam is a better ally, better _man_ than Steve could have imagined.  He wonders to himself if maybe…if maybe Sam could look like things getting better. 

The moment he thinks it, he’s wracked with guilt.  What would Bucky think?

_Nothing, you idiot.  He’s dead.  You’re playing games with a ghost!_

Steve’s heart recoils from that truth even as his mind nods in agreement.  He hasn’t had a cheat day in just over three months.  He’s _trying._

Nat told him about the Winter Soldier, but knowing and seeing are two different things.  The Winter Soldier – he’s lethal.  He’s strong and fast.  He moves with a grace that makes Steve keen, even as he fights, calling out for something.   

Steve marvels at his strength, his agility, even as they fight.  His knife skills are wonderful and Steve feels a pang of jealousy.  He never had that kind of dexterity, not like Bucky.  When the mask comes off and reveals the man Steve’s been fighting?  His brain might be confused, but his gut?  His gut knows.  His gut has always known.  It’s the way he’d moved – lithe, like dancer.

Later, Steve stands on top of the dam, and Sam tries to talk him out the foolishness he’s about to commit.

“He doesn’t know you,” Sam says.

“He will.”

Was this what Strange meant?

It doesn’t matter.  Steve will stop at nothing if it means getting Bucky back – the real Bucky, flesh and blood.  He won’t settle for anything less.

.

“What is this?” Bucky asks, plucking the golden coin from the dish that Steve empties his pockets into each evening. “You’ve never said.”

Steve takes the coin from Bucky’s hand.  It’s light and cold, no longer heavy, and warm with magic.  It’s been years since Steve said the words, facing the waning light, wishing for a ghost.

He drops the coin back into the dish.  Getting Bucky back was a new kind of war – one that he had to watch Bucky fight alone, unable to do battle with the demons that haunted his mind.  It’s been years, and now they have way more good days than bad, but even if they didn’t?

That wraith, for all its warmth and light, that was nothing compared to the man in front of him.  Steve wraps his arms around Bucky and holds him close.  He smells like sage and lavender, some concoction that Pepper recommended.  His hair smells light and bright, like berries or freesia?  And the arms that wrap around Steve are both flesh and metal.

“It’s what brought me back to you,” he says, and he means it.  It’s his good luck charm, his talisman.  A reminder of the mistake he almost made.

“I love you, pal,” Bucky says, and presses a kiss to the side of Steve’s face.

“I love you, too.”

 


End file.
